Anscombe and Wittgenstein on Knowledge 'without Observation'

In this chapter, which is purely exegetical, I suggest that close attention to the legacy of Anscombe’s mentor Wittgenstein can shed some unaccustomed light both on the idiosyncratic form of inquiry in her book Intention and on some of the particular conclusions found in that book. In the first part, I point to a methodological parallel between Wittgenstein’s post-1945 investigations into the nature of everyday psychological concepts and Anscombe’s treatment of the concept of intention. In the second part, the Wittgensteinian provenance of Anscombe’s logical category ‘knowledge without observation’ is exhibited, and her extension of what falls under this form of knowledge (from Wittgenstein’s case of knowing the arrangement of one’s limbs, to matters concerning intention as well) is outlined. This extension will require a twist in how the intentional form of such knowledge is regarded as corrigible. Finally, I identify the odd form of knowledge just explicated with ‘practical knowledge’ as Anscombe sees it, and try to show that some puzzles revolving around her invocation of Theophrastus’ principle and Aquinas’ view of the causal power of practical knowledge may be resolved thereby